Twitter / IFWGPublishing

Wednesday, 28 July 2010

A reminder of what we do, and don't do (sort of)

This blog is new and it occurred to me that stuff we posted in Twitter, FB, our web site and also our wiki site, is not reflected here. I don't want to go entirely granular, but there are important messages to give. Perhaps to begin with, a catalog of our services might be a good starting point.

We are a traditional publisher. We started as a hybrid publisher but we quickly grew and turned to traditional publishing only (in fact the growth was so quick, we actually ONLY published traditionally).

We started off publishing almost anything, "as long as it was good". It is changing fast now, again, because it is part of our growth. Basically, we publish speculative fiction, children's fiction, and non-fiction (if is it is good). We also publish magazines, with no real need to be genre specific.

We are a small and vibrant team. We believe in loyalty. Authors who published outside of our descoped genres/types, will be supported for as long as they want to be.

Twice a year we run the Story Quest Short Story Contest. For the two contests this year (one already completed), the main prize is an automatic journey to title publication with us. There is a similar subcomponent prize for illustration.

Twice a year we publish SQ Magazine, which is a literary journal that runs as an extension of our team, our authors, and the finalists of the Story Quest Contest. One is about to be published, and it is chock full of great short stories and articles (not to mention a super cover).

Over time we have learned much. Sometimes the hard way. It also sometimes seems to act against our main mission, which is to give upcoming authors a chance at being published, to make good writers better. For example, we have had to develop a policy on authors who were self-published, who wanted to transition to traditional publishing - this was never directed at any one author, but just reflected some commercial realities that we have had to learn.

Nevertheless, we have had an enjoyable ride and are publishing very worthwhile titles, giving authors an opportunity to get a 'leg up' toward their goals and aspirations. We have already revealed on this blog one of our authors, we will fairly rapidly show the others in the next few weeks.